Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HyperSpace (HYPER entanglement in SPACE)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-03-31
The solution: the direct exchange of entangled photons in space via optical satellite links.
Within HyperSpace, a team of scientists from Europe and Canada will study the distribution of complex (high-dimensional) entangled photons via satellite. It paves the path to take quantum communication research to a whole new level and to solve together technological challenges whose results will benefit society. The overarching goal of HyperSpace is to further develop satellite-based quantum communications by appropriate experiments into scalable global quantum networks. This global quantum network will interconnect a wide range of quantum processors using a variety of quantum channels, just as in the conventional Internet.
To facilitate deployment on scalable small satellites, the team seeks not only to develop new
protocols based on quantum hyperentanglement, but also to transfer these protocols into
scalable photonic integration platforms. Applications of HyperSpace in the field of information technology and sensors will be extensive. For instance, a global quantum internet will enable significantly improved applications, such as more accurate clock synchronization, highly efficient cloud information, or even highly secure data transmission through quantum cryptography that relies on physics. Some of these applications were previously not imaginable.
More information on https://hyperspace.international(opens in new window).
References:
https://www.iof.fraunhofer.de/en/pressrelease/2022/hyperspace.html(opens in new window)
https://inrs.ca/en/news/propelling-quantum-research-across-continents/(opens in new window)
Technical meetings are taking place regularly. Further project meetings and workshops have been conducted in June 2023 in Montréal, Canada and in February 2024, in Pavia, Italy.
To generate a mission concept for global, satellite-based Quantum communication, a first draft of source requirements has been created in December 2022. Since then, possible mission scenarios have been identified and will be further investigated in the second half of the project.
Development and characterization of integrated photon pair sources have been realized using a silicon bichromatic photonic crystal cavity. Further details in Barone et al. (https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0170292(opens in new window)).
Furthermore, polarization-entangled photon pair sources based on periodically-poled silica fiber (PPSF) have been constructed and commercialized by an industry partner, OZ optics.
The relationship between high-dimensional entanglement and the noise resistance of QKD protocols operating in high dimensions has been investigated in Bulla et al. (https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.107.L050402(opens in new window)). High-dimensional protocols for QKD were used to show an improved noise resistance over a 10.2 km free-space channel.
Towards high-dimensional entanglement for Quantum Communication in the frequency domain, a record certification of discretized frequency entanglement has been shown with a highly efficient and nonlocally implementable approach in Cabrejo-Ponce et al. (https://doi.org/10.1002/lpor.202201010(opens in new window)).